Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Significant losses by double-spending unconfirmed transactions

From: Matthieu Riou <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2015 11:25:17 -0700

Hi,

Thanks for the bug report Simon, "responsible" disclosure on public forums
is always appreciated. We're working with ShapeShift to make sure we can
protect them appropriately against this specific attack in the future. As
"Me" and Adrian advised, I would also encourage you return the funds.

Regarding Peter's accusations on Twitter/Reddit/listserve, we have no idea
why we are his target. He has never met with our CEO, has no idea of our
business model, nor our company objectives. All his comments about us are
his speculations. I'm sure Peter knows what a Sybil attack actually is and
making such claims on a public forum is completely unfounded and uncalled
for. Stretching definitions beyond the point where they make sense is a
common rhetoric and political tool, not necessarily appropriate in a
professional or technical context.

We offer useful services for many startups like ourselves. We are good
actors in this space. As a startup we are also constrained by limited
resources (we're funded but far from larger companies resources). Companies
aren't built in a single day and we hope to do more to help
decentralization in the future as well. We're trying to further the
ecosystem with our small team, so the pot shots are puzzling.

Thanks,
Matthieu

On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 9:12 AM, Milly Bitcoin via bitcoin-dev <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> Below are 2 examples why a systematic risk analysis needs to be used. The
> current situation is that you have developers making hyperbolic, demonizing
> statements that users are "spammers" and engaged in Sybil "attacks."
> Characterizing these activities as spam and Sybil attacks is not a
> systematic analysis, it is closer to the process used at the Salem Witch
> trials.
>
> If this process of demonetization is to take its natural course then these
> statements are "developer attacks" from a developer system that lacks
> proper incentives and is rife with conflicts of interest.
>
> Russ
>
>
>  ... they need to
>> connect to a large % of nodes on the network; that right there is a
>> sybil attack. It's an approach that uses up connection slots for the
>> entire network and isn't scalable; if more than a few services were
>> doing that the Bitcoin network would become significantly less reliable,
>> at some point collapsing entirely.
>>
>
> ...
>
> > Spammers out there are being very disrepectful of my fullnode resources
>
>
>
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